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Jesus was a martyr but at least he didn’t take anyone down with him. His suicide (which is what it was if you believe his mission was to die for us) in my opinion makes zero sense, but hey – billions of people for centuries seem to think that his dying redeemed us from Original sin (That seductress – Eve). I, for the life of me am incapable of grasping how and why one would come to this conclusion. But, that’s another blog.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is Jesus did not kill anyone (God the father killed millions , but Jesus did not). Jesus also preaches thou shall not kill. So yes, Jesus was a martyr but as I said… On the other hand, the other monotheistic Abrahamic religion – Islam, explicitly encourages and rewards persons who not only commit suicide but also murder as many people as possible in the process in the name of their god Allah. Lovely!!!

How counterintuitive is it to think that suicide and mass murder is something that will get you into Paradise with all those virgins. Just absolute nonsense!!! WTF are these zealots thinking???

So to get to my point, what if one of these suicidal homicidal martyrs gets his hands on nuclear weaponry? It’s over – that’s what. End of the species – Sapiens and the Genus – Homo. Thankfully, N. Korea is not a theocracy and Kim Jung-Un is not suicidal. But Iran is.

So WhaDaYaThink? What do you think? What I’ve always thought to myself was – thank God making a nuclear bomb is prodigiously difficult. If it was easy, you wouldn’t be reading this now. You’d be dead.

Without question, my favorite Bible moment in the Gospels is when Jesus is in The Garden of Gethsemane. I thought this scene (Though the movie ‘Passion…”as a whole failed i.e. too much emphasis on the gratuitous violence visuals – like 90% of the film) was absolutely beautifully, powerfully, and poignantly depicted. This is the Jesus I hold near and dear to my heart because you see and viscerally feel the HUMAN Jesus – scared, confused, and uncertain – like us, mere mortals. I’m moved more by the human (perhaps even flawed) side not the supernatural stuff i.e. miracles, etc.

So WhaDaYaThink? What do you think? My second favorite moment is when Jesus is dying on the cross and he says “My Father, My Father, why have you forsaken me?”

Wow – I’ve been citing “separation of church and state” from the Constitution ever since I can remember and the fact of the matter is it’s not worded that way. I was wrong all this time. The first Amendment simply states Freedom of Religion and there is an establishment clause that says that government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. So it’s not necessarily anti-religion, rather it’s the government not sponsoring any “one type” of religion. INTERESTING!

Now considering myself a Universalist and no longer an Atheist or just a Christian for that matter, I feel better about our founding fathers. When I was in “atheist mode” I used to always pontificate about how the old-time framers of the Constitution were all really atheists. In fact, the opposite was probably true – they were believers of a sort. Check out this quote “A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and DEGRADE religion.

So WhaDaYaThink? What do you think ? I’m definitely not married to my positions, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, etc. I’d like to think of myself as an extremely open minded person weighing all the best evidence no matter where it leads. And true, though I was quite the strident atheist for some time, I now view the new atheists as quite frankly –ARROGANT and self-righteous in their own intellectually snobbery way! Arrogant in fact to a degree of a ranting and raving lunatic theologian. The truth is NOBODY knows – not the pope, not the new atheists, not Richard Dawkins, not Charles Darwin – NOBODY!!! Yes we now have quantum mechanics, string theory, Higgs Bosom and other science, but we still know virtually nothing about what consciousness is. That obviously leaves room for speculation about whether or not some sort of awareness survives the death of the physical body. I hope so anyway (but only if there’s no such thing as hell – lol. That scares the crap out of me. Those fucken nuns and priests ruined my life! They drilled that fiery hell stuff into my undeveloped child-brain and I STILL – at the age of 53 am terrified of eternal damnation. Don’t you think preaching eternal fiery hell to a child is tantamount to child abuse?)

I just don’t know how anyone can possibly approve of this type of absolutely DEMONIC behavior from a supposedly benevolent god.

This is written in an informal colloquial style – but is it not all true? Look it up yourself. Tell me where I’m wrong?

I just don’t get it – at all. WhaDaYaThink? What do you think? And if you think Jesus was the “sunshine god” who softened “daddy” – WRONG! As bad and sadistic as dad was, he never threatened eternal fiery damnation for disobeying him like his son did. Jesus threatened to send you to a fiery pit of hell forever and ever and ever and ever… for simply having a lustful THOUGHT – not even acting out on such an impulse. I’ve always maintained that the path to disavowing Christianity and Judaism is to just read the bible – the whole thing from Genesis to Revelation.

Below I’ve cut and paste and shared these 12 crazy stories from “the divine text” in sort of common man lingo (I think it’s effective) This was written by someone just as bewildered by the malevolent insane Judeo-Christian god as I am.

12 Craziest, Most Awful Things God Did in the Old Testament

God was a bit of a hellraiser before Jesus softened him up.

By Rob Bricken / i09 February 26, 2014

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Before Jesus arrived and his divine father chilled out, the Old Testament God was, ironically, kind of a hellraiser. He was not a nice guy. He really liked killing people. And he may have actually been insane, if his willingness to randomly murder devout worshippers like Moses was any indication. Here are the 12 craziest, most awful things God did in the Old Testament, back before that wacked-out hippie Jesus softened him up.

1) Sending Bears to Murder Children

So a guy named Eliseus was traveling to Bethel when a bunch of kids popped up and made fun of him for being bald. That had to suck, and you can’t blame Eliseus for being pissed and cursing them to God. But God had Eliseus’ back, by which I mean he sent two bears to maul 42 of these kids to death. For making fun of a bald dude. I have to think Eliseus was looking for something along the lines of a spanking, or maybe the poetic justice of having the kids go bald, but nope, God went straight for the bear murder. But on the plus side, that pile of 40+ children’s corpses never made fun of anybody again. (4 Kings 2:23-24)

2) Turning Lot’s Wife to Salt

Most folks know about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities of sin God decided to kill everyone in instead of, you know, making them not full of sin. But this was a town that, when two angels were staying at Lot’s place, gathered en masse and asked if they could rape them. I repeat: They wanted to rape angels. So they kind of had their destruction coming. Lot and his family were sent from the city before things went down, and Lot’s wife looked back, and God turned her into a pillar of salt. It’s generally understood that Lot’s wife was looking back in a wistful kind of way at her angel-raping hometown, but the fact is there’s nothing in the Bible to suggest this. Nor was Lot’s family warned about looking back. Maybe Lot’s wife wanted to see Sodom and Gomorrah get what was coming to it. Maybe she was thinking wistfully of the things she had to leave behind. Maybe she wondered if she had left the oven on. We’ll never know, because God turned her into seasoning for breaking a rule she didn’t know existed. (Genesis 19:26)

3) Hating Ugly People

In what should be good news for intolerant religious conservatives, God really does hate people who are different from the norm. Of course, God isn’t as worried about skin color or sexual orientation as he is about whether you’re ugly or not. Because if you’re ugly, you can just go worship some other god, okay? (Even though God will punish you if you do and also they don’t exist.) Here’s the people God does not want coming into his churches: People with blemishes, blind people, the lame, those with flat noses, dwarves, people with scurvy, people with bad eyes, people with bad skin, and those that “hath their stones broken.” Given that God is technically responsible for giving people all of these afflictions in the first place, this is an enormous dick move. (Leviticus 21:17-24)

4) Trying to Kill Moses

In terms of people who God likes, you’d think Moses would be pretty high up on the list, right? I mean, God appointed him to lead the Jews out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea for him, and even picked him to receive the 10 Commandments, right? Yet this didn’t stop God from trying to kill Moses when he ran into him at “a lodging place.” There is literally no explanation given in the Bible for God’s decision to murder one of his chief supporters. The line is “At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him.” The only sensible explanation for this is that God was drunk out of his mind and looking for a bar fight, and you better hope that’s correct because the alternative is that God’s a psychopath. How was God stopped from murdering his #1 fan? “But [Moses’ wife] Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it … So the Lord let him alone.” Either the sight of a very unexpected circumcision sobered God up quickly, or he didn’t want to touch a dude who just touched a severed foreskin. Still, it’s Moses’ son who’s the real victim here. (Exodus 4:24-26)

5) Committing So Much Genocide

God has killed so many people, you guys. Okay, I mean technically, God has killed everyone if you subscribe to Judeo-Christian thought, but I’m not talking about indirect methods, I’m talking about God murdering countless people in horrible ways simply because he’s pissed off. God drowning every single person on the planet besides Noah and his family is pretty well known, but he also helped the Israelites murder everyone in Jericho, Heshbon, Bashan and many more, usually killing women, children and animals at the same time. Hell, God once helped some Israelites kill 500,000 other Israelites. God’s crazy.

6) Ordering His Underlings to Kill Their Own Children

God is obviously good at big picture dickishness, but he also took the time to be a dick on a more personal level. Abraham was another devout man God decided to fuck with, apparently because he knew he could. God ordered him to sacrifice his son to God (God was a fan of human sacrifice at the time). We know Abraham loved his son, so he was probably kind of upset with this, but hey, God’s God. So Abraham tricked his unsuspecting son up a mountain onto a sacrificial altar and prepared to murder him. This story actually has a happy ending, in that right before Abraham drove a knife into his son’s throat, God yelled “Psych!” and told him it was only a test. And then Abraham received some blessings after that for being willing to kill his own child at God’s whim. And all it took was the dread of being forced to kill his own child on behalf of his angry deity and, presumably, a shit-ton of awkward family dinners for the rest of his life. Abraham got off better than Jephthah, who had to follow through with murdering his daughter (burning her alive, specifically) in order to get on God’s good side before battling the Ammonites. (Genesis 22:1-12)

7) Killing Egyptian Babies

Let’s be completely up front: The Egyptians and the Jews did not get along. According to the Bible, the Egyptians enslaved the Jews, but the Jews had God on their side, if you kind of ignore God letting his people be enslaved in the first place. Rather getting his worshippers the hell out of there, God wanted to show those damned Egyptians what for, releasing 10 plagues that began with turning the river Nile into pure blood, and ending with the slaughter of the first-born of every single Egyptian man and animal. Now, I suppose it’s possible that some, or even most of these first-borns were adults who were shitty to the Israelites. But some of them were babies who didn’t even have the time to persecute the Jews yet. And what the hell did the animals do to the Jews to get caught up in this nightmare? You realize there were cats in Egypt, right? Cats who had first-borns? God killed kittens. (Numbers 16:41-49)

8) Killing a Dude for Not Making More Babies

So you’re a dude named Onan and you have a brother named Er. God does not care for Er, and kills him. Standard God operating procedure. Then things gets weird. Onan’s dad orders Onan to have sex with Er’s wife — not marry, by the way, just have sex with. This is actually pretty awkward for Onan, sleeping with his sister-in-law, and rather than give her any more kids (she had two with Er already) he pulls out. God is so infuriated that Onan did not fuck his sister-in-law to completion that he kills him, too. Now, you could argue that God demands that intercourse be used specifically for procreation, but given how much God loves killing babies and children, I don’t think his motives here are exceptionally pure. (Genesis 38:1-10)

9) Helping Samson Murder People to Pay Off a Bet

More evidence that God is possibly a low-level mobster: When his pal Samson got married, he was given 30 friends, and he posed them (a completely insane) riddle. Then he made a bet that if they could solve it in a week, Samson would give them all new clothes, but if they couldn’t they would give Samson 30 pairs of new clothes. Well, Samson’s wife wheedled the answer out of him and then told these dudes, at which point an angry Samson had to pay up. And here’s where God comes in — literally, into Samson, giving him the power to murder 30 random people for their clothes. Only a true friend would help you commit mass murder to settle a completely stupid bet. (Judges 14:1-19)

10) Trying to Wrestle a Guy, Cheating, and Still Losing

And here’s more evidence that God is a drunk maniac: Jacob was traveling with his two wives, his 11 kids, and all his earthly possessions and had sent them across a river. At that moment, a guy essentially leapt out of the bushes and started wrestling. It’s God! They wrestle all night, and God cannot beat Jacob, so he uses his magic God powers to wrench Jacob’s hip out of its socket. But Jacob still won’t let him out of a headlock until God blesses him, because Jacob has figured out who this bizarre man is. God blesses him and wanders off, presumably to go get in a bar fight somewhere. (Genesis 32: 22-31)

11) Killing People for Complaining About God Killing Them

To be fair, after God freed the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, they were extraordinarily bitchy about not instantly being in a land of milk and honey. It got so bad that God was ready to kill all of them and let Moses start the Jews over, although Moses managed to talk him out of it. But one of their more sensible complaints was that Moses was lording himself over the rest of them, which was probably true, seeing as God had given him the 10 Commandments and all that. So Moses summoned the three tribal elders who had made the complaint to a Monday morning staff meeting, but two of them didn’t come. Neither Moses nor God cared for that, and God opened up the grounds beneath their people’s tents, killing both tribes (God also set fire to 250 Israelite princes who’d made the same complaint). Having been well admonished that Moses was putting himself above the rest of the people with God’s permission, a number of surviving Israelites were kind of pissed that Moses and God had killed so many of their fellow people to prove a point. God responded by killing another 14,700 of them with a plague. The complaints stopped. (Numbers 16:1-49)

12) Everything He Did to Job

Oh, Job. Other than a shit-ton of babies, no one had it worse in the Bible than Job, who was a righteous, good-hearted man who believed in God with every fiber in his being — which is when God decides to see how miserable he can make this dude before he gets upset. Note: This is a result of a bet between God and Satan. Also note: The bet is God’s idea. He’s literally just hanging out with Satan — which is kinda weird when you think about it — when he started bragging about how awesome Job is. Satan points out that Job’s pretty blessed — he’s rich, he’s got a lot of kids, etc., and he probably wouldn’t be quite so thrilled with God if he didn’t have that stuff. God downs his bourbon, presumably, and tells Satan he can mess with Job all he wants. Satan does. He kills all of Job’s children and animals, burns down his house, destroys his wealth, and then covers him in boils. Job doesn’t curse God, but he does wish he’d never been born (literally) and begs God to kill him, but no dice. This lasts a long time until finally Job wonders why a just God would be so cruel. This is when God pops up and basically tells him, “Shut up, I don’t have to explain anything to you.” Job, having finally done something wrong, pleads for mercy, and God eventually gives him back animals and children — new ones, because the old ones are still dead. Because of a bet. That God made with Satan.

I’m reading “The Psychedelic Gospels” by Jerry and Julie Brown. The case they present is the ONLY way to understand and experience God (make any sense of it all) is to ingest psychedelics (like Aldous Huxley did). Check this out:Gordon Wasson (1898-1986) took some sort of psychedelic mushroom and had a soul-shattering religious experience – ecstasy. he writes”…it permits you to see, more clearly than our perishing mortal eye can see, vistas beyond the horizons of this life, to travel backward and forward in time, to enter other planes of existence, even (as the Indians say) to KNOW GOD.” Though I’ve never personally experimented with psychedelics, this does make it absolutely enticing and compels you to think that YES there maybe a God.

The absolutely most important thing in my life is Spirituality, connecting with God[s] or whoever is running the Universe (I have entertained the possibility that there maybe more than a God but perhaps several Gods. So, I am a Universalist like Aldous Huxley. Read this tale – this says it all.

When Svetaketu was 12 years old he was sent to a teacher, with whom he studied until he was 24. After learning all the Vedas (Hindu Scriptures), he returned home full of conceit, in the belief that he was consummately well educated and very censorious.
His father said to him,” Svetaketu, my child, you who are so full of your learning and so censorious, have you asked for that knowledge by which we hear the unhearable, by which we perceive what cannot be perceived and know what cannot be known?”
His father replied, “As by knowing one lump of clay all that is made of clay is known, the difference being only in name, but the truth being that all is clay-so my child, is that knowledge, knowing which we know all.”
“But surely these venerable teachers of mine are ignorant of this knowledge; for if they possessed it they would have imparted it to me. Do you, sir, therefore give me that knowledge.”
“So be it , ” said the father….And he said, Bring me a fruit of the nyagrodha tree.”
“Here is one, sir.”
“Break it.”
“It is broken, sir.”
“What do you see there?”
“Some seeds, sir, exceedingly small.”
“Break one of these.”
“It is broken, sir.”
“What do you see there?”
“Nothing at all.”
The father said,” My son, that subtle essence which you do not perceive there-in that very essence stands the being of the huge nyagrodha tree. In that which is the subtle essence all that exists has its self. That is the true, that is the Self, and thou,Svetaketu, art that.”

I’ve read and re-read this a dozen times and I am completely captivated by it. THIS is what God is!!! It’s a non-physical “thing”…SUBTLE ESSENCE is my mantra.

My liberal atheist friends dismiss all this but I think they’re foolish. There is something MUCH MUCH more powerful than us. I after all have been to the other side. Yes, I died and had an NDE (Near Death Experience) and there IS something. I connected with God and I also saw the evil one. I won’t elaborate here, another time perhaps. But, I swear to you – THIS IS 100% TRUE!!!

I’m reading “The Psychedelic Gospels” by Jerry and Julie Brown. The case they present is the ONLY way to understand and experience God (make any sense of it all) is to ingest psychedelics (like Aldous Huxley did). Check this out:Gordon Wasson (1898-1986) took some sort of psychedelic mushroom and had a soul-shattering religious experience – ecstasy. he writes”…it permits you to see, more clearly than our perishing mortal eye can see, vistas beyond the horizons of this life, to travel backward and forward in time, to enter other planes of existence, even (as the Indians say) to KNOW GOD.” Though I’ve never personally experimented with psychedelics, this does make it absolutely enticing and compels you to think that YES there maybe a God.

Now the optimist in me says – yes this is real ! The theory is that God made mushrooms (so its natural) man ingests them, the pineal gland is activated and it allows man to get on the same “wavelength” so to speak to actually relate to God. Now the skeptic side of me is that this is all bullshit – you’re on a drug and your brain is firing abnormally or whatever. I don’t know, but I find it fascinating nevertheless. BTW, if you ever visit the Vatican, check out all the sculptured pine cones symbolizing the pineal gland which as I said is what’s affected when ingesting mushrooms. so, Whadayathink ? What do you think ?

I wasn’t going to talk about it. But when people at work asked me what I was “giving up” for Lent I decided to tell them. It’s not so much a matter of giving up as it is a matter of giving. After all, we’re not kids anymore. Giving up “soda” benefits you and no one else. After some debate (with myself) I decided I had to feel what it is to actually suffer while at the same time benefit someone else in return. I would give up my Friday Morning Special, a bacon and egg with cheese sandwich, and give it to a homeless person instead. In essence, I was trading places with him (or her) and they would get to eat while I would feel what it was to have hunger gnawing at my stomach. This noble gesture lasted the first two weeks as I gradually gave in to the temptation of filling my gut. By the third week I was no longer waiting until noon, but nibbling something at 11 am, then at 10. No matter, I reasoned, I was still experiencing the unbearable reality of having nothing to eat. Really? What about going all day or for days on end? Jesus fasted for forty days, the homeless do it all the time and not by choice. And me? Well, don’t be too hard on yourself. Our talents to releive the suffering spirits of others lie in all directions. We need to be different to fill different needs.
I decided, while still participating in my hunger trade off (I’m still working at it), that I would also go to church during my lunch hour and pray for those in need. Oh, I still have to cheat and eat lunch at my desk first, and then go so the growling lion in my stomach doesn’t echo through the uppermost chambers of the cathedral and disturb everyone else. That’s considerate, isn’t it? One would think that even in the heart of midtown Manhattan, here, in this beautiful sanctuary is a haven of peace. But this is where the homeless are fed each morning by the friars of both St. Francis of Assisi and St. John the Baptists churches. The homeless linger because there’s no place else for them to go. They’re found sleeping in the pews, snoring or dozing off while the working class stop in to murmur petitions into God’s ear. The crowd is not your usual one but I’ve come to accept that it’s more normal than my usual parish. After all, there are all kinds of people and the unfortunate ones are a grim reminder of what charity is supposed to be.
Along with the sad state of the world scattered between the hard wooden pews serving as resting places, there are all manner of unexpected and rather unholy sounds that detract from the overall experience of trying to muster a sense of devotion in the space of 60 minutes. The clattering of mop and pail as the janitor performs his churchly duty. The intrusive ring tone of a cell phone finding its way even here and then answered by its recipient with no regard to the inner conversations of those around her. The couple continuing their conversation as they walk in from the street as if they’re walking into a Starbuck’s to order a latte. And then the lack of decorum extends treating the church as a public space to read the newspaper, and get this, feet propped up on the pew in front of him! It’s okay to be comfortable in God’s house but this is not your living room. I promised myself not to be judgemental but….c’mon.
Well, here’s the surprise. I walked into church yesterday right in the middle of Stations of The Cross. For those of you unfamiliar with Catholicism, the Stations are the re-enactment of Jesus’s crucifixtion. There were only a few people but I found a place in back where I wouldn’t disturb the group already in progress. The priest was at the pulpit conducting this somber service. But there, in the middle of the aisle, on bended knee, was the same man I see every day reading his paper, the construction worker with the audacity to prop his feet up on the pew in front of him. He was the most devout of all ! And he even collected the little booklets from the people at the end of the service.
So, in this Spirit of Lent, bring yourseld as you are, with all of your God-given imperfections and be transformed. Miracles happen even, or shall I say especially, in New York City. After all, I may still one day bring an empty stomach. The possibilities are there.

I was brought up as a Catholic. As a child I attended 8 years of Catholic grammar school, 9 if you count Kindergarten. I can still remember Tommy and Kathleen Henderson, two of many siblings in their large talented family, regularly asked to sing for the class. One of their favorite hymns was “Jesus Met The Woman At The Well”. I could hardly fathom the reality of the lyrics in my innocence at 7 years old, and now retrospectively, realize the importance of the lesson. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the hymn, Jesus tells the woman everything she’s ever done, that she has five husbands…….and is willing to forgive her.
If Jesus, in his infinite mercy forgives, why does the Catholic Church alienate divorced people, demanding in exchange, unreasonable sums of money to declare the marriage annulled? Jesus didn’t ask the woman at the well for anything as long as she was sorry. People make mistakes. People are expected to. That’s how we learn and grow spiritually. It’s the only way possible. The Church wants people to “come back” but refuses communion to anyone who has not been granted an annulment. That’s like inviting someone to your house but not allowing them to eat at your table.
I’m a big fan of Pope Francis. (I sometimes make the mistake of calling him Pope Saint Francis but that may not be too far from the truth.) He is a man of remarkable insight and isn’t afraid to say what he believes is right, even in the face of opposition and criticism. Here is what he had to say on the subject of divorcees as quoted in the Catholic Herald on December 8, 2014:
“In the case of divorcees who have remarried, we posed the question, what do we do with them? What door can we allow them to open? This was a pastoral concern: will we allow them to go to Communion? Communion alone is no solution.
“The solution is integration. They have not been excommunicated, true. But they cannot be godfathers to any child being baptised, mass readings are not for divorcees, they cannot give Communion, they cannot teach Sunday school, there are about seven things that they cannot do, I have the list over there. Come on! If I disclose any of this it will seem that they have been excommunicated in fact. Thus, let us open the doors a bit more.”
In October, the Pope will once again ask the Church to change (no cost annulments is but one suggestion) but there are some cardinals staunchly opposed to the reformation concerning the divorced. They refer to the teachings of Jesus who stated no one must divorce. Yes, it’s true these words are in the Bible. What’s also true is Jesus forgave the woman at the well. If she were invited to His house along with a good many other people, wouldn’t she be among the first to join him at His table for supper?

So…………..whadayathink? I have divorce in my background, and after many years have happily come back to the Church, only to be confronted with alienation all over again. If no one can separate us from God, the question remains, may we eat at His table or not?

A LinkedIn friend (Richard Gere – lol … just kidding) just sent me this and I felt compelled to throw this up on our blog. Even if you are an out and out atheist, you must admit that the wisdom from the east rings of truth; indeed Sam Harris, one of the so – called “four horsemen of the apocalypse” has publically stated that he has spent many years studying eastern philosophy… for which he still has the utmost respect.

“The tighter you squeeze the less you have.”

“Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish (your) opinions.”

“There’s no meaning to a flower unless it blooms.”

“If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.”